He is a pediatrician and developmental scientist with long-standing research interests in the development of sleep/arousal regulation, affect regulation and the development of behavioral and emotional disorders in children and adolescents. His current work focuses on adolescence as a developmental period with unique opportunities for early intervention in relation to a wide range of behavioral and emotional health problems. His research is interdisciplinary and bridges between basic developmental research (emphasizing social and affective neuroscience) and the translation of this work into clinical and social policy relevance. He has published extensively on child and adolescent development, sleep disorders, behavioral/emotional health in children, adolescent brain development and on the policy implications of this work. He has been elected as a Fellow of several organizations including: Association for Psychological Science, American Academy of Pediatrics, New York Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He is a Founding Editor of the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and is a Past President of the Society for Research in Child Development.